Audiobook Sample

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  • Title: Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
  • Author: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  • Narrator: LibriVox Volunteers
  • Length: 08:17:56
  • Version: Abridged
  • Release Date: 01/01/2016
  • Publisher: LibriVox
  • Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction
  • ISBN13: SABLIB9781519
To my fellow seekers of literary depth and cultural resonance,

As I settled into my favorite reading chair – the one where I first encountered Murakami’s bilingual magic realism during my Tokyo fellowship – I prepared to revisit Mary Shelley’s masterpiece through the medium that has increasingly shaped my scholarly engagement: the audiobook. This LibriVox volunteer narration of “Frankenstein” offers a fascinating case study in how communal reading practices can reshape our understanding of canonical texts.

The multiple narrator approach (a hallmark of LibriVox productions) unexpectedly enhances Shelley’s nested narrative structure. Walton’s framing letters gain urgency when voiced differently than Frankenstein’s recollections, creating what my Comparative Literature students would call a ‘polyphonic effect.’ While the audio quality varies slightly between readers – some recordings clearer than others – this actually mirrors the novel’s thematic preoccupation with disparate elements forming an imperfect whole.

Shelley’s exploration of creation and responsibility struck me differently this listening. Perhaps it’s because last semester, when discussing Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go” with my bioethics seminar, we debated how Shelley anticipated contemporary genetic engineering dilemmas by two centuries. The Creature’s lament – ‘I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel’ – resonated with new pathos when heard aloud, its cadences echoing Milton’s blank verse in a way I’d missed during silent reading.

Several volunteer narrators particularly shine in rendering the Creature’s speeches. One reader’s rendition of the famous ‘I was benevolent and good’ monologue conveyed such raw vulnerability that I paused my evening walk to fully absorb it, much like I’d stopped mid-stride years ago when first encountering Murakami’s Kafka Tamura in both Japanese and English. These moments reveal how audio performance can surface emotional textures that lie dormant on the page.

The recording isn’t without limitations. Some chapter transitions feel abrupt, and a few readers pronounce Romantic-era vocabulary with modern inflection. Yet these imperfections create an endearing DIY aesthetic that aligns with Shelley’s own youthful authorship. As I often tell my digital humanities students at Berkeley, sometimes technological constraints produce unexpected interpretive possibilities.

Compared to professional productions, this version offers something unique: the sense of literature as communal enterprise. When different voices articulate Frankenstein’s hubris versus the Creature’s anguish, we experience the novel’s central dichotomy more viscerally. It reminds me of that revelatory “Cloud Atlas” seminar where we debated how medium shapes meaning – here, the volunteer narration itself becomes a commentary on collective versus individual creation.

For first-time Shelley readers, I’d suggest supplementing this audiobook with the text for close analysis of her intricate framing devices. But for returning visitors like myself, this version provides fresh pathways into familiar terrain. The Arctic framing narrative gains particular immediacy when heard – Walton’s letters become genuine epistolary documents rather than literary conventions.

What fascinates me most is how this audio experience underscores Shelley’s prescience about technological mediation. Just as Frankenstein’s creation rebels against its maker’s intentions, this volunteer-produced audiobook – a digital-age collective endeavor – transforms Shelley’s solitary writing into something democratically collaborative. In our era of AI and biotech, perhaps we need these multiple human voices to properly reckon with her warnings about creation’s consequences.

In scholarly solidarity and shared wonder,
Prof. Emily Chen